- [Karin] Hello, iPad Letterers!
It's so nice to see you!
In today's "Plan With Me" video,
we are going to create a digital bullet journal spread
for the month of July.
I'm going to be using
my current favorite journaling app which is Zinnia
but for this spread you don't actually need Zinnia.
We are going to be using mostly Procreate,
so if you don't have the app, it's not a problem.
You can easily use the spreads in other journaling apps
such as GoodNotes, Notability, or even Keynote on your iPad.
In the first part of the video,
I will do a flip-through of last month's journal
to see what it ended up looking like
and also to give you a little bit of an update
of what's been happening in the world of iPad Lettering.
And then in the second part,
we are going to set up the new journal spread for July.
And once again,
let me show you one of the brand new Zinnia features
which doesn't look like that much at first glance
but you really wanna see it
because it's actually super useful
and it will totally take your journal designs
to the next level.
Let's jump right in
and let's do a little bit of a recap for June.
The monthly overview page that you can see here
is unfortunately quite empty.
It has only got a few birthdays
that I've ended up adding here.
And now next up we have the weekly spread
and I actually ended up not liking this layout so much.
It looks very cute but it was not that practical.
I don't tend to do any iPad Lettering related things
in those times,
so it felt like all that time slots that I've had here
were a little bit empty.
So for the second week of June,
I ended up using this layout
and I liked it much better.
So it's got four slots everyday that I can use.
So this ended up being quite useful
but I think we can still improve this a little bit.
There's still a few things I didn't like so much,
especially the weekends.
I tend to do a lot more iPad Lettering related things
on the weekend.
So I think I'm gonna make another tweak
to the spread for the month of July.
Other than that, I thought it worked really nice.
I really like having the quote here,
and then here I can have some tasks,
and then I can tick them off.
And that worked really nicely.
All right, and now let's also look at the habit tracker.
So this has actually worked quite well.
You see my eating was not too bad.
There's a bit of a pattern here you can spot.
The red ones.
So Fridays is usually when we like to relax
and have a bit of a wine,
and obviously that's when I don't stick to my eating plan.
But other than that it's been going really well.
And the same with my training.
And this is mainly
because I haven't been too strict about it.
So if you remember from last week
where I said that I marked this as green,
even if I just go for a walk outside
and that still counts.
So this is why I've got a lot of green marks here.
And then with the gratitude tracker.
I actually didn't end up using it as much as I thought.
I thought this was gonna be a given
and I was just gonna do it every day
with no problems.
But you can see I wasn't very consistent with it.
So this is definitely something I need to pick up again
a little bit more.
And then the mood tracker.
And I feel this is quite related
to my gratitude journal tracker.
You can see here,
I had a few bad days in a row.
And there's really a correlation between tracking my mood
and doing my gratitude journal.
And then another thing I ended up doing
was the artwork of the month.
And this is something I'm going to be doing every month now.
I thought this was super useful.
So I went back and had a look
through all the artworks I've created
during the month of June,
and then selected the one that I was most proud of.
And the artwork I ended up selecting
was the one where I tried to replicate
a writing in the sand effect.
So I went through this
and I wrote down what I really liked about it
and then also maybe something
I could think about improving for the next time.
I'm just gonna zoom in a little bit
so you can see what this looks like.
I created this in Procreate
and what I really like about this
that I taught myself a new technique.
I figured out how to create this lettering effect
and make it look as if it was written in the sand.
And I was quite pleased about this.
Also let me know in the comments
if you would like me to do a tutorial
of how I did this.
And I'm happy to make another tutorial for you
and show you exactly how you can do this.
It was actually a lot of fun
and I really enjoyed figuring this out.
And then another page I added
after I set up the journal
was a review for the month.
I usually do this every year
but I think I'm gonna start doing this every month as well,
just to go through the highlights,
some of the challenges I had,
and then also some actions for July.
And the highlight for June
was definitely the iPad Letter Together Challenge.
I'm having so much fun with it.
It's been amazing.
Also the feedback I got from all of you.
How you've jumped in,
how you've contributed to the challenge.
It's been so amazing.
So thank you so much for doing this with me.
Also really the accountability.
That's what really made all the difference for me.
I've gone back to almost like when I started
with iPad Lettering
and I really sat down every night
practicing my lettering
and then coming up with new and fun ways
of how to create those lettering pieces
has been an absolute highlight.
And then some of the challenges I had last month
was pretty much staying up too late too many times.
And then I also felt I wasn't always focused enough.
(Karin laughs)
But that's mainly because I was playing "Animal Crossing"
a little bit too much.
And so one of the actions
that I've written down for next month
is to actually plan relaxation time to be less distracted
but also to not feel guilty
if I sit there and play "Animal Crossing."
I really feel playing "Animal Crossing"
has actually made me very relaxed
and I've enjoyed the game so much.
So I'm gonna plan this.
And so I don't have to feel guilty
but then I also get all the things done
that I wanna get down.
Now let's get into July
and let's start planning the next month.
So we're going to set up a brand new journal.
So we're tapping on the plus.
We're starting with a basic page
and also a blank page style.
And then we're going to go back
and we're going to create the cover for the journal first.
And so for the cover, I was thinking it would be really cute
to use one of my paintings that I've made in Procreate.
So the only thing I'm gonna do here
is actually write the word July on it.
So we're gonna create a new layer.
And then what I've done as well,
I've actually made lots of different stamps with words
so I can reuse them,
and I've got a July one here ready.
So now let's choose black.
And then we've got July
just like that. (laughs)
It feels a little bit like cheating
but this makes it so much faster,
creating the journal.
And now you can see
that the black on the background
might look a little bit too harsh.
So now what we can do
is try some different blend modes.
So we can go in here
and then maybe choose the overlay blend mode.
And you can see now how the color really adjusts
based on the background.
So I think this looks quite nice.
So now let's export this as a JPEG.
And now we can set the cover as that
and then we are also going to rename this.
And this is our cover page done.
So this looks pretty good.
And the theme we're going to use for this month's spread
which is also going to be the theme
for the iPad Letter Together Challenge for July,
is gonna be Summer Fun.
So this is gonna be really nice
because then you have your planner
and you have your lettering challenge
and you can use the same theme.
You can even use some of the lettering pieces
to decorate your journal.
So I think this will be a very very nice combination.
And then what I thought would be very nice as well
is actually using a watercolor background paper.
And this is where the new feature of Zinnia comes in
and I'm going to show you how this works.
So there is a set of papers here.
And then we have this watercolor background here.
I've tried this before
and I didn't like it so much
because it feels quite intense
and then it's also hard
to place additional elements on this page
but let me show you what we can do now.
I'm just gonna resize it
so that it covers the whole page.
And now you can see how at the bottom
there is a new button here.
And this lets you change the opacity
of all the elements that you're putting into Zinnia.
This is so cool.
I know it doesn't sound like it's a lot
but you can actually create
a really really cool effect with this.
So now let's change the opacity.
We still want that watercolor a little bit.
I think having it in the middle here
is actually very nice.
So you've still got a subtle watercolor paper look
and then we're going to lock this.
And then also for this month's spread,
we are actually going to create a template
that we can reuse for all the pages as well.
So now we're gonna go back to Procreate
and we are going to create some elements
that we can place on this page
which will then form the base of our template.
So now we're going back to Procreate.
And now what we're gonna do
is duplicate this artwork.
We wanna keep the original one
but this one here,
now we can modify this a little bit.
So the first thing you wanna do
is get rid of our lettering.
We don't need this.
And we can see now here as well
how I've placed different elements on different layers.
But now I can go back
and I can pick certain elements out of this page
and then create something new from it.
Isn't that amazing?
So I'm gonna turn off some of the layers that I don't want.
So now we've got this part here
which is a bit of a problem
but we can smudge this out,
so this is not too bad.
And then the brush we are going to use
is the Ultimate Edge brush.
This is part of the Galaxy brush set.
And really, what we're trying to do here is fade this out
so there's no harsh edge here anymore
and then make it look nice on our journal page.
And now it's looking pretty good.
So now all you have to do is turn off that background
and export this PNG and save it to your photos.
And then we're going back to Zinnia
and now we can import this and see what it looks like.
So grab the picture from your photos
and then place it on the page
and you can just make it go a little bit outside
so it's fit here in the corner
and looks pretty nice.
So now I feel there needs to be something up here as well.
So let's go back to Procreate
and see how we can do that.
And then let's turn on that sky layer here.
Let's see if we can use this.
So I'm gonna place it here in the corner
and then again using the smudging tool
to smudge this out.
And export that as a PNG and save it to your photos.
And then we're going back to Zinnia again
and we can import this now as well.
So now this is our template done.
So what we wanna do next is duplicate this.
And this is what you wanna do for all the pages,
so you can duplicate this as many times as you need
to create all your planner spreads.
So on the first page,
again, we are going to do the monthly spread.
This looks very similar
to the one that you can grab from Zinnia as well.
The only difference is that I've ended up
adding a task list here.
I find this handy for tasks
that need to be done every month.
And the previous template didn't have it.
This looks pretty good.
So now let's create a header here for July as well
and we're going to go back to Procreate again.
And I've already got my stamps here.
So we're going to grab the July stamp again.
And we're going to put this on the page.
This is so nice and easy.
And I actually want this to be white
and then have a little bit of a shadow
because I think it would look nice on my planner page.
So now we're going to duplicate the layer
and then we're going to turn off the background color
just so that you can see what the color of this looks like.
So we're going to alpha lock this layer
so we can fill it with white.
And then the bottom layer,
we're just ever so slightly gonna move to the bottom right
to create this shadow.
And then we are going to decrease the opacity
so it becomes gray.
And it'll also be a little bit see through
which is gonna be nice on our planner page.
And this looks pretty good.
So now what you wanna do here as well
is actually resize the canvas.
So we can go to Canvas, Crop and Resize.
And then just make it
as big as the finished header is going to be.
So it doesn't end up having a massive boundary
on your Zinnia page.
And then we can put it into Zinnia.
This is super easy.
And you can see how this is very fast as well.
It doesn't take very long to do this.
And then I wanted to have some other
little embellishments on the page.
So I went back to Procreate.
And then I've got this selection of abstract shapes
that I've made for myself and it's got these leaves.
So I'm gonna them here.
And then let's choose some of the colors
that we've already used for the rest of our journal pages.
And this looks good now,
so we can turn off the background color
and then export this again as PNG
and now we can put it into Zinnia as well.
And this just adds just this little touch
and I think it's very cute
and then we can put one down here as well.
And then of course,
we need to add all the dates on this page as well.
So I'm going to use these colors
and a highlighter tool
to create the blobs for the month.
And July actually starts on a Wednesday
so we're gonna start here.
So I'm just gonna randomly paint those blobs on the page
and then these will be the background for the numbers.
And this is our monthly overview page done.
Now let's also create a weekly spread.
I've created this template
using the Affinity Designer app on the iPad.
Definitely let me know
if you're interested in learning
how to create these templates using Affinity Designer.
I'm more than happy to show this as well
if you're curious to find out.
And you'll see here
that the template is slightly different.
I've used a similar approach to what I've done last month.
But then the adjustments I've made
is that there's only three slots now on the workdays.
So I really don't wanna overstretch myself too much
by planning too much and then not being able to do it.
So I think the three slots will work really well
but then on the weekend I added five slots
so I can do five things
and hopefully I'll be able to schedule in
a lot more relaxation time as well.
And then also here at the bottom,
there is this space here
where I can record all my tasks.
I think this spread is going to work really well for July.
And now the next thing we wanna do
is setting up the habits.
I'm going to duplicate the template first.
And now let's create the habit tracker.
I've created the heading for this as well using Procreate.
And then I really like the little mini calendars.
So I'm going to add them as well.
So we're gonna go to the templates
and then in the monthly planners
there are these mini templates here we can use.
And then we're gonna place it here.
So one of the things you'll notice
with the watercolor background,
we painted out the label of the calendar
using the white marker.
So now when we do that,
you'll see that it's not gonna look very nice
because the watercolor paper is not 100% white,
so it kind of looks a little bit weird like that.
But I am going to show you a really cool trick
about how we can fix this.
So what we're gonna do is make it a feature.
Sometimes if things don't look as nice as you want,
it looks like a mistake,
but instead of keeping this mistake,
you're gonna make a feature.
So we're gonna create this rectangle here like this.
And then washi tape to the rescue.
So now what we're gonna do is select one of the washi tapes
and then just select this simple gray washi tape
and now we can place it on top here.
And now you ask,
so why did you create the white background
before you put that washi tape on?
And this is a very good question
because remember how we've got this new opacity slide now?
This is so cool.
So now what we can do is change the opacity
ever so slightly.
So now you see how that white sort of comes through
and then the washi tape doesn't look so intense.
So it creates this really really cool look
and it feels like you've painted this
on top of the watercolor paper.
I'm so happy about this,
and this really makes a huge difference
in the design of the tracker pages.
All right, so now we are going to add a label to this.
I'm going to use the text tool.
And the first one's going to be tracking my eating habits.
So we're gonna type eating and then place it here.
Oh, maybe let's put it in the middle and it looks good.
So now what we're gonna do
is group these elements so that we can copy and paste them
and then we're gonna make
two more habit trackers for training
and then I also wanna make one
for the iPad Letter Together Challenge as well.
And this is our habit tracker done already.
You can see this was super fast and easy to create.
And we've been able to use
one of the new features of Zinnia as well.
Then I'm gonna create just one more page
and this is going to be for our artwork of the month.
We can just add our header here.
So this is very motivating for me
to create a beautiful artwork
that kind of matches this layout as well.
So let's see what we can come up with.
Hopefully you found this useful.
I also have a very in-depth Zinnia tutorial
where I'm showing all the features that Zinnia has.
It's really my favorite app at the moment.
I love using it so much.
Give me a thumbs-up if you liked this video.
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Thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you in my next video.